


He's Having His Baby!

by rageprufrock



Series: Babies! [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:42:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rageprufrock/pseuds/rageprufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babies had better be totally fucking awesome, John thinks dismally, because not even sex is worth this shit. (Warning, Madelyn should be shot for this.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Having His Baby!

Kate says, "Tell me what happened on the planet."

John says, "It was technologically advanced--and they didn't like us." He makes a face. She smiles at him encouragingly. John could essentially script out their post-traumatic-mission sessions from memory at this point, since they never deviate from this pattern. "Anyway--there was some shouting and Rodney insulted some native scientists and then I got beamed around by some golden light."

John waves his hands. "The Doc checked me out, though. I'm all fine."

Kate's smile is indulgent. "You seem good. Happy."

John grins. "Well, like I said--on a scale of one to Wraith-bug, this was like, a two."

Kate laughs, and John loves her laugh. It's broad and earthy and takes-no-prisoners. If Rodney didn't have the most terrifying and vicious jealous streak John has ever seen, John would let his mind wander about how she'd sound laughing during sex.

"All right," she concedes. "I'm appeased. Go on."

John salutes jokingly and stands up. That's the exact moment when all the blood rushes to his feet, he gets dizzy and shaky and crazy nauseated, and pales three shades, which when you're as white as John knows he is, means you become see-through.

An hour later, Kate's making him talk about his mother and the psychosexual meanings of a Ferris wheel and John has never hated his life more.

 ****

 *****

At dinner, John's in a terrible mood, which he doesn't think is all that strange considering Kate now thinks that John relates his suppressed sexuality to the repetitive circling of a Ferris wheel. She'd said the words, "Lumbering blurrily in the distance. Real, in a way, but out of reach."

John had only been able to stare at her in mute horror.

Then, his bad mood got worse because Teyla and Ronon and Rodney sat down near him and started to talk about their days, which had not included three hour sessions with Heightmeyer the Freudian.

"And then Kavanagh comes up to me--"

"Is he still singed?" Teyla asks, smiling.

"--oh my God, he's so still singed," Rodney babbles happily, "so he comes up to me and says, 'So the waste disposal system is a little out of sorts.'"

Apparently this is the best punch line ever because even Teyla laughs, and generally she only giggles at John's misfortunes.

John pokes miserably at his food and hates not getting the joke for a second before he feels Rodney's big palm warm and curving over his knee, which makes him feel a lot better but weirdly homicidal at the same time.

He jerks his knee upward, just enough to jam Rodney's hand painfully between John's kneecap and the bottom of the table, and Teyla and Ronon look incredibly amused when Rodney makes a high-pitched yipping noise and snatches his hand back, curling it protectively against his chest.

"What the hell?" Rodney demands, looking at John darkly.

John blinks his eyes, hugely innocent. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says, and pushes his untouched food away.

"Are you all right, Colonel Sheppard?" Teyla asks. "You haven't touched your food."

 John gives her his most saccharine smile and says, "I'm fine, Teyla. I think I'll just head back to my room."

"And stay there until you grow up!" Rodney snaps sullenly, still rubbing his hand.

"Rodney," John says in a quiet, measured voice.

"What?" Rodney shoots back.

John's about to lob an insult, but he feels a sudden, unexpected flare of heat up his spine, the kind of sizzling whisper he gets when Rodney's building him a new gun or doing something insanely cool with a Puddlejumper, and his expression slips, melts, and resolves into a slow, slinky smile he knows Rodney is utterly defenseless against.

John's eyes go half-lidded, and he leans forward a little in his seat, enough to see Rodney's brain go very clearly from ACTIVE AND FUNCTIONING AT 230% POWER to SEX SEX SEX mode. He says, running his thumb against the edge of the table, "Did you want to get that thing, Rodney?"

Rodney says, "What? What?"

John raises his eyebrows, enough to convey at least four utterly filthy sexual acts he wants accomplished in the hour. "You know, that thing you left in my room."

"I--yes. Very much. A lot," Rodney babbles, and sort of falls out of his seat in a standing position.

Ronon rolls his eyes.

"We have to go now," Rodney supplies helpfully. "I left--my thing. It's in John's room."

John just smiles and starts sauntering out of the mess. He catches at least three people who are pretending not to have crushes on him staring, including Kavanagh, which is scary and strange and John can't wait to tell Rodney all about that.

Behind him, Teyla says gently to Rodney, "Please leave now."

Rodney says, "Okay. Yes, because--"

"No, just go," Teyla suggests. "We believe you. You've left something in the Colonel's room."

Ronon snorts. "His manhood."

"Hey--!"

And then there's some shuffling and Rodney's falling into step next to John, sullen if still pre-sex-glazed.

They're not at all discreet and John should be worried about that, but hell, it's Atlantis, and honestly, if you can make peace with almost certain death, life sucking aliens, and really, really strange magnetic fish, then people can deal with Rodney panting after John down the residence corridors.

Anyway, once they get inside John's room, there's a lot of aggressive growling and biting of lips, licking and sucking and all sorts of completely inappropriate things that will probably one day undermine John's authority, though at the moment, his thighs splayed out over Rodney's hips and his hands holding down Rodney's shoulders, John knows exactly who's in control and based on Rodney's ecstatic, whimpering moans--so does Rodney.

 *****

"I say it was a sex temple."

"It was likely a fertility temple, yes," Teyla agrees lightly.

They're all sitting in the conference room, recording data from their last mission off world. They hadn't found any ZPMs, but the advanced technology of the natives and their less than scorching hostility toward John's team after John had taken a spin in their golden whirligig of light had seemed promising.

And at the rate they're going through Alpha-sites, one more is always a good thing.

"Aren't they the same thing?" Rodney demands. "Sex, fertility--" he makes a hugely insulting hand gesture "--enormous, drooping breasts."

Teyla narrows her eyes at him and Ronon and Sheppard are suddenly fascinated with the weaponry and architecture they noted on MX45780.

"The difference, Dr. McKay," Teyla says, voice poisonous, "is that the temple was erected to celebrate birth--not simply promote sex. The blossom as well as the flowering."

Rodney snorts. "Right. Blossom."

John pretended not to hear. Rodney was still a little bit prickly about the not-pregnant thing from a while back. Sure it was water under the bridge and yesterday's news but Rodney totally wasn't above turning off John's hot water or looping muzak in John's quarters.

And then Ronon and Rodney started talking about one of the dishes they'd tried on the planet before the natives had gotten a little upset with them, about the spices and the space-lamb, how it was so delicious they were almost willing to go back and brave the whole thing again just to get another dish of the stuff--

Which was precisely the moment John thought, "Oh my God, fertility temple," and threw up all over Rodney's shoes.

 *****

There are times when John is reminded painfully of the fact that Carson's a research physician and not a general practitioner, because any normal doctor wouldn't be saying, "I'm sorry--I've just got to do an anal exam--I have no idea how this is scientifically possible."

On the other hand, it does reinforce John's belief that he has not lost his edge, because one narrow-eyed look at Beckett has the man and his gloves and his slimy, cold lubricant backing away carefully.

"Um. Or we could start with a sonogram," Carson says.

 

"That's a good idea, Doc," John says, fisting his hands in the sheet.

About twenty minutes later, they're both staring at the screen, having a moment of severe cognitive dissonance.

John pokes the monitor a bit.

"I think it's broken," he declares.

"Maybe it's a spot," Carson says faintly.

"I ate a grape today," John supplies helpfully.

"Aye," Carson says, eyes huge.

John stares at the monitor some more, where in the midst of gray, patchy tissue there is a small, white knot Carson had pointed out.

"Maybe it's a tumor!" John says brightly.

Carson smiles at him feebly. "Maybe you're right, Colonel." He shakes his head and smiles. "Right then--let's run some lab work!"

John's never been more cheerful to have his bodily fluids stripped from him.

Carson talks happily about strange growths and John thinks, "Hey, a tumor wouldn't be that bad!" and then Carson runs some blood samples and says, "Well, the good news is that your cholesterol is very good."

"Carson," John says.

"Also, you have just lovely red blood cells," Carson says desperately. "Very lovely and round and cushy."

"Carson," John says, voice rising.

"And your urine sample was--"

"Carson, if you start talking about how great the salt content in my pee was, I will burn down your infirmary," John warns.

"You've some unusual hormones in your urine," Carson says feebly.

"Is that so," John says faintly.

"I'm running the tests again--they could be wrong," Carson says, though he doesn't sound hopeful.

John lies down on the exam table. "My day started out so good."

 ****

 *****

 

John and Carson spend a lot of time staring and bitching and repeating tests because (a) this is physically impossible, (b) it's a less bloody alternative to letting John out of the infirmary so he can go to MX45780 and burn down the entire planet, and (c) John was having a really embarrassing panic attack and between the vomiting and punching walls, he wasn't in the mood to deal with the rest of Atlantis.

"I want the morning after pill," John declares.

"I don't think it works that way," Carson says sincerely.

"Have you  _tried it yet?_ " John asks dangerously.

Carson frowns at him.  "And anyway, I think you owe the father a discussion before we go rushing off to any conclusions, lad."

John curls his lip.  "What,  _consult a ray of yellow, freak alien light?_ "

Carson coughs.  "Well."

"Do not," John warns.  "Go there." 

"I'm just saying," Carson pleads.  "Maybe have a conversation with Rod--"

"I'm leaving right now," John threatens. 

"I don't think it's too much to ask you to talk to him about it," Carson says angrily.

John scowls.  "It's--I was--it was a  _tractor beam_.  It probably has tentacles!"  John paled, and pulled up his shirt, inspecting his flat, hairy stomach with undisguised fear.

"Oh for--it did not have tentacles," Carson says.  "It looked perfectly normal."

John crumbles on a chair and covers his face.  "I think I'm going to cry," he confesses.

 ****

 *****

 

Later, when John is curled up in his bed, feeling a lot like a sixteen year old girl out of an after-school special, Rodney shows up to ratchet that self-pity into "bad soap-opera" levels.

"So you and Carson are certainly cozy today," Rodney snaps.

John pokes his head out from underneath the blanket, and gives Rodney the fish eye before he buries his face back in his pillow.  John has this working theory that if he tries hard enough, he can convince Atlantis to suck out all of the oxygen within Rodney's immediate breathing-range.  On the one hand, murder one would totally suck after the black mark and all, on the other, you know,  _silence_.

"Silence is acceptance, Colonel," Rodney says, and John never realized how shrill Rodney was until this moment.

John sticks one hand out and hits the nearest thing he can reach, which turns out to be Rodney's kidney.  But he's so weak from exhaustion and psychosis and being impregnated by fucking tractor beams, Rodney only says, "Ow!" three times really loudly before launching into a discourse about abusive relationships and statistics about them in the military.

"Rodney, seriously," John says, and his voice is scratchy and weak, "this is not the time."

There's a brief silence.  John counts to five.

"What?  Because you're half-dead from sexual exhaustion from having performed disgusting acts of carnality with that Scottish, sheep-shagging--!  He has a girlfriend you know!   _You_  have a girlfriend, you know!"

John looks up from the pillow.  Rodney actually shuts himself up at that.

"Boyfriend," Rodney corrects sullenly.  "Your--person that you.  Have relations with type--thing."  He waves his hands in the air.  "Look!"

John pulls the blanket over his head and moans.  "We are so not talking about our relationship right now it's almost as much as I'm  _not_  sleeping with Carson," he says.

Rodney's quiet for a second before John feels the bed depress on the right and Rodney's hand carding through the tufts of hair that are peeking out from underneath the covers.  Rodney has large, soft hands, and John likes them. 

He would like them better if Rodney would stay a quattuordecillion miles away from him.

"What's wrong?" Rodney asks matter-of-factly.  "You're acting like a Wraith-bug crawled up your ass and died."

"Rodney," John says, his voice muffled by the sheets, "if you do not remove your hand, I will do it for you, and it'd  _suck_  for you to have to invent a whole new keyboard so you could still type real fast one-handed."

Rodney snatches his hand away wisely, but not before he characteristically says something hugely embarrassing.  "Oh, I already know how to type one handed.  I mean, it's kind of a necessity if you're going to cy--um."

John pulls the covers off of his head and glares at Rodney.

"Get out of my room," he says.

Rodney frowns.  "Are you like, curled up in bed, crying into your pillow?"

"No," John says defensively.  It's true, the tears of helplessness and womanly pain ended almost a whole hour ago.

The expression on Rodney's face looks suspiciously like sympathy, and this is how John knows that he is at an all time low: when Rodney McKay feels sorry for you, there is no more meaningful kind of fucked in the world.  John pulls the blanket over his head again and curls up in a fetal position.  "Go away," he says.

"Is this anything that can be remedied with sex?" Rodney asks sincerely.

John knees Rodney in the hip, enough to shove him off the bed, and while Rodney squawks, John says, "No--and it never, ever ever will be again."

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong!" Rodney snaps.

John debates his options here, but figures that in three to five months, barring a miracle or Carson actually producing those morning after pills or this all being some sort of shroom-induced hallucination on yet another whacky alien planet, he's going to be outed anyway.

He pulls the blankets in tighter around himself.

"I'm pregnant," he says.  "The tractor beam knocked me up."

John is emotionally prepared for a whole range of reactions, anything from ecstatic hope that it's actually a cancerous mass, or--if he was honest with himself--something more like what Rodney did when he managed to convince himself that John was pregnant.  John might be more amenable to letting Rodney touch him if Rodney was going to massage his ankles and tell John he was awesome and save him pudding.

Then Rodney says, "Oh, that's  _so funny_ ," and storms out of the room.

 ****

 *****

 

The next day, John fesses up to Elizabeth, who looks so torn between hilarity, horror, and such a lack of surprise that it makes John want to cry all over again.  Carson is dragged into the meeting and so are Teyla and Ronon, who doesn't get the joke but instead stares at John a whole bunch.

"We should tell Rodney, too," Elizabeth says.

"Aye," Carson says, giving John an evil eye.  "You should."

John slouches further down into his seat.  "He already knows."

Carson's eyebrows shoot upward.  "Does he?"

It's John's turn to give the evil eye now.  "Yeah, and he doesn't believe it, big surprise."

John doesn't know when he became the Man Who Cried Pregnant, but it's really not cool.

Carson coughs, and sounds not a little bit repentant as he mutters an apology.  Even Elizabeth looks a little shamefaced.

"So what do we do?" Elizabeth asks.  It's what she always does when faced with an impossible situation with improbable odds and total slackers as her heroes of the galaxy.  John looks at Teyla who looks at Carson who looks at his hands for a bit before he goes to the old fall back of more tests and research--blah blah blah.  Translation: hope it doesn't burst out of Colonel Sheppard's chest like in all the movies.

 ****

 *****

 

That day at lunch, Teyla and Weir and Carson and Ronon all take turns hovering, but through a clever combination of guilt, reminding people of menial tasks, and begging, Teyla, Elizabeth, and Carson all go away.

It leaves Ronon and John staring at each other over mashed potatoes and Athosian Sort Of Turkey.  John picks at his food disinterestedly for a while before Ronon says:

"You should eat."

John glances up.  "Huh?  Oh--yeah." 

He half-heartedly scoops up some potato before letting the fork fall again.

Ronon makes a gruff, growling noise that John interprets as disapproval, and when John looks up, he sees--God help him--concern on Ronon's face.

"What?" John asks, and forces a smile to his face, keeping his voice light.

"You should eat, keep up your strength," Ronon lectures.  "For your young."

John doesn't die immediately at the table, but it's very hard.

He chokes out, "Excuse me?"

"Your young," Ronon repeats.  "It'd be irresponsible not to eat."  Ronon gives John his roll.  John figures that this is where the world is supposed to end, but it doesn't, and Rodney comes up to the table instead, looking for all the world like a wronged lover.

"First Carson, now  _Ronon?_ " Rodney hisses.  "You're like an EM field!  Everybody gets one!"

John puts his head down on the table.

"Watch your mouth, McKay," Ronon warns.

"You were giving him food," Rodney sputters.  "For you that's practically a betrothal gift!"  John lifts his head just in time to see Rodney grab the roll off of John's tray and wave it in Ronon's face.  "So what?  You guys bonded over physical violence but discovered true love over blowing things up with progressively bigger guns?"

Ronon bares his teeth in a way that makes John think that he's about to have to go to the infirmary to explain a really, really embarrassing injury for Rodney if he doesn't stop this.

"Rodney, knock it off," John says.

"Oh, of course, protect your boyfriend," Rodney says, slamming the roll back on John's tray.  "That's just peachy.  Congratulations on trading up!" 

He looks red, and belligerent and scared and hopeful and John is suddenly reminded of all the reasons he  _likes_  Rodney, and he's even about to say something comforting and fitting of a good boyfriend slash person that John has relations with type-thing, but then  _Ronon_ says:

"On Citeda--we don't speak to the mothers of our children that way."

And Rodney yells, " _You're in on this ridiculous joke, too?_ "

So John puts his head back down on the table and starts calculating the five hundredth-digit of pi in his head.  At the two hundred and twenty-fourth digit, Ronon puts his hand on John's shoulder and says, "Don't worry.  I'm here for you if he doesn't come around."

"Wow, Ronon," John says into the surface of the table.  "Thanks."

"Yeah," Ronon says, and adds, "No, seriously.  Eat."

 ****

 *****

 

A few days after that, John pardons himself from a meeting where Elizabeth explains to Major Lorne why he has to go back to Freak Sex Temple planet to ask them how to un-knock-up John because that is just more embarrassment than John is willing to work through in this lifetime.

Lorne is sympathetic and apologetic when he returns.

"They say it's a great honor," he says pitifully.

"I'm feeling really honored," John mutters, remembering having his head in the toilet this morning.  "So honored."

"If it makes you feel any better, they say the baby will be human," Lorne adds.

"We should burn down their planet," John suggests.

Lorne smiles.  "Probably not a good idea, sir, no."

John scowls.  "Right, Major."

"Also, you know, smoke would be bad for the baby," Lorne says, like he just can't resist, and before John can even  _say_  KP, Lorne waves his hand apologetically.  "Anyway, they say there's nothing they can do."

John's so deflated by this that he has to go take the puddlejumper out all day and buzz the four-headed dolphins they found near the North shore of the mainland.

 ****

 *****

 

News spreads like the plague on Atlantis since there's a notable lack of bad television and  new pornography. After a while John has to start answering questions about why he's not going offworld and why Carson is following him around like a puppy and why Ronon is threatening to kill everybody who so much as looks at the military leader of Atlantis funny.

People are unexpectedly cool about it, though John figures he shouldn't be so surprised given that they all live in a galaxy across the known universe where their lives are constantly threatened by life-sucking aliens that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to catfish on heavy narcotics.

So John should be weirded out by the fact that Teyla solicits John to go on trips to the Athosian mainland so that he can sit with the eldest women of the tribe and have them wash his hands with herbs and paint lucky symbols into his palms with something like pale green henna.  But mostly he's grateful for their tea, which they swear gets rid of morning sickness like a charm. 

John jokes that he wouldn't mind it so much if Rodney wasn't such a jerk and was around for John to puke on, but all the women get a look on their faces like Rodney might be getting collectively bitchslapped the next time he steps foot on the mainland, and John hastily changes the subject.

Miko, Simpson, and Kusangi band together to present him with the softest, most beautifully crocheted afghan he's ever seen, he just smiles at them, honestly happy; Zelenka makes a beautiful crib out of curled metal pieces they find in one of the abandoned labs--after careful tests to make sure they're harmless of course.  Elizabeth gives John a mobile made of tiny, cloth friendship dolls she'd received as a gift from one of their trading partners, their soft, colorful bodies strung up on white string.

So by the end of the second week of being knocked up, John's not feeling so terrible about it.  And even if Rodney's skulking around Atlantis not making eye contact and driving everybody crazy and ardently denying the existence of John's baby, John's not feeling too upset about it (yet).

The time spent on Atlantis allows John to do some backlog paperwork and a couple of reorganizations that were a long time coming, and while he and Elizabeth are working out security shifts, she says:

"How do you feel about all of this?"

"What, putting Lorne on Thursdays?" John asks.

"The baby, John," Elizabeth asks gently.  "The  _baby_."

John automatically puts a hand to his belly.  It's still flat, and if it weren't for the fact that Carson's sonograms are still showing the spot, that it's changing a little, that it's moved around some, John wouldn't believe it.

"I'm actually not as freaked out as I thought I'd be," he admits.

Elizabeth smiles at him approvingly.  "Good.  We're all here for you John."

The moment's so sappy that John has to say, "That's only because I haven't given any serious thought to how it's going to come out, though."

Elizabeth rolls her eyes.  "Okay, John."

"No, seriously.  I mean, how would it even--?"

"John!"

John grins, and turns back to the paperwork.

It's all fun and games until he stays up until four in the morning, at which point he goes and knocks on Carson's door in a panic.  Because seriously--he thinks, letting Carson take his blood pressure, how the hell  _is_  the baby going to come out?

 ****

 *****

 

On the first Saturday after John and Carson came up with the Cesarean, Cesarean, Totally A Cesarean plan, John wakes up to find Rodney crawling into his bed, sulking and wearing dark bags under his eyes.  John just sighs and throws one leg over Rodney's hip, says, "Are you done thinking I'm a prostitute?"

"No," Rodney says belligerently, and lets his hand creep up the back of John's t-shirt, palming John's spine in a way completely contrary to his tone of voice.  "Are you done pretending that you're pregnant just to torture me?"

John murmurs sleepily and presses in along Rodney, closing his eyes again.  It's been a while since they've done this, just drowsed together, and he's really not in the mood to pick a fight with Rodney, Queen Bitch of the Pegasus Galaxy when they could be napping instead.

Rodney doesn't like silences but he seems to be able to handle this one, and he presses a soft, distracted kiss to John's collarbone before he breathes once, twice, three times deeply and drifts off, heartbeat steadying.

 ****

 *****

 

By the end of the first month, Rodney still thinks it's all one vast conspiracy against him, despite the fact that the other scientists have taken to placing extra lead shielding around all of their work when John drops by the labs.

"Isn't this joke a little too elaborate?" Rodney complains.

Zelenka ignores him.  "How is everything--do you feel good?"

Simpson grins and leans in to whisper, "Can you feel it move yet?"

Miko wants to know if it's a boy or a girl.  She shows John pictures of onesies.  "Can you knit one with the Batman logo on it?" John asks brightly.

Kavanagh sneers.  "Oh,  _please_ , he's a freak of natu--" he starts to say but abruptly stops when there's a sharp, thunking noise under the lab table.  His face goes white just as Kusanagi's expression becomes angelically peaceful.

"Oh, this is disgusting," Rodney says scornfully.

Then, he takes out something that's probably pretty experimental--given the way Zelenka, Simpson, Miko, and even Kavanagh tackle him at once, a mess of limbs and voices shouting at each other and for John to go far, far away.

From behind the safely closed door, John hears Rodney yell, "You incompetent fools! Get--off--me!"

"You were about to misshape a child!" Kusanagi shrieks.

"How can you be a terrible father  _already?_ " Simpson demands.

There's a lot of shuffling, thumping noises.  "It's  _not real!_   There is  _no baby!_ " Rodney bellows.  "Get  _off of me!_ "

Zelenka says something that sounds positively poisonous in Czech, and John decides that he really, really likes the scientists.  He whistles all the way down to the gym, where Teyla has made a date with him to work out, though about five minutes into it he realizes she's tricking him into learning Lamaze.

 ****

 *****

 

That night, John goes over to Rodney's rooms and makes himself at home in the bed.  He's probably been asleep a couple of hours before Rodney comes in and falls like a corpse next to him, and Rodney's incoherent whimpering into the pillow is pathetic enough that John laughs and rearranges him, tucks him under the covers, pats his thin hair and rubs his hand in a circle on Rodney's back.

"My entire team is against me," Rodney accuses wearily.  "I don't know how you managed to co-opt them but they are now part of your evil plan to play the worst joke ever on me-- _again_ \--"

"I wasn't pregnant that time," John argues gently.  "And I told you."

"--and I cannot help but to suspect that there were door-to-door sexual favors offered for something this persistent and sprawling--"

"Actually," John says.  "I told you a bunch of times.  What we have, Rodney, is a failure to communicate.  Last time, I wasn't pregnant.  This time, I am."

Rodney gives John a look that would kill a wildebeest at forty paces.

John looks wounded.  "Would I lie about this?" he asks.

"You lie about everything!" Rodney hisses, even as he tucks himself in more closely around John's body, hands creeping under John's t-shirt in a thoroughly suggestive way.  John's smile goes bedroom-crooked, and he hums happily into Rodney's temple. 

"I mean," Rodney continues, though he's losing momentum, voice faltering as John slides his hands under the waistband of Rodney's boxers, palming Rodney's ass, "you--oh, keep doing that, yes, thank you--you insist your hair is like that naturally and we all know for a fact that--oh.  Yes.  That's very nice.  Mm."

"My hair is like this naturally," John says, licking Rodney's collarbone.

Rodney is shucking off John's t-shirt, but it doesn't stop him from rolling his eyes so loudly John can hear it through the fabric covering his face and saying, "Oh, please.  I've seen trick boys on the Venice boardwalk who could only  _dream_  of going to salons where they give people hair like yours."

John falls back to the bed, and he pulls a deeply affected expression, arms open and shirtless across Rodney's mattress, as he says, "What the hell do you know about trick boys on the Venice boardwalk?"

Rodney pales, and then he flushes, and then he's plucking at his own shirt, straddling John's hips, erection digging into John's thigh in a very pleasing way.

"I uh--it was a purely hypothetical comment," Rodney says.

"You're a big man in the science community, Rodney," John says innocently, batting his lashes.  "Maybe you should be charitable and take one or two of your favorite ones to the salon on your own buck--"

"Okay, that's it," Rodney declares.  "We're going to have sex now.  No talking."

Then Rodney does a thing where he sucks rosy spots all over John's chest and graphs conics out on John's thighs, and John can't help but to laugh and pull Rodney close for a kiss, because this is good--this is really good.

John is feeling charitable and upgrades that to "great" by the time Rodney sits on his cock, his own dick red and slick with pre-cum and bobbing in front of him, eyes dark and blue and drowning, one hand pressed on John's chest.

John can't help but to pull Rodney's hand off of his chest, to kiss Rodney's curled fingers, brush his lips over the knuckles and press his mouth to Rodney's wrist, because he can't believe it took him thirty-six years, a trip across the known universe, one false alarm, and an honest-to-God Aliens Impregnated Me! story before he got here, but he likes it--

And he likes it even better when Rodney leans over, holding himself up by his thick arms and drives himself back on John's cock.  Most of all, though, John loves that when they come, they're kissing, and John can feel Rodney's teeth biting along his lip like a brand.

 ****

 *****

 

When John wakes up the next morning it's to such an incredibly strong wave of nausea that he barely makes it into the bathroom before he's emptying food he didn't even know he'd  _eaten_  into Rodney's toilet.  He doesn't know how long he's on his knees on the cold tile before he slumps over to the side, leaning his head against the cold, ceramic base of the sink and blurrily sees Rodney's concerned face.

"Oh my God," Rodney says helpfully.  "I've never seen a human being throw up that much.  Are you okay?  Are you dying?  Am I going to be single again?"

John scowls and kicks at Rodney's shins.  "You're single already, asshole," he croaks.

"That's real sad," Rodney says thoughtfully, and puts his hand on John's forehead.  "You don't have a fever," he observes, frowning.

"No," John says patiently, "however I do have a  _baby_."

Rodney flaps his hand dismissively.  "Lying to me now is so incredibly counterproductive I'm not even going to dignify that with proper annoyance," he says breezily.  "Okay, did you eat anything weird?  Touch anything without my express permission?"

John staggers to his feet with Rodney's help, drapes himself over the sink and rinses out his mouth, grabs the toothbrush he keeps in the cupboard over the toilet and starts trying to brush the nausea out of his mouth.

After John spits out the toothpaste, he says, "Well, there was that molding, unidentified alien carcass I munched on when I was on the mainland yesterday."

"You're so funny, really," Rodney says tonelessly, fluttering around John worriedly. 

"I try," John says, and then all of a sudden he's puking again and he hates everything in the entire world because he's so sick he's dying, he's sure of it. 

He's so nauseated it  _hurts_  and he gasps for breath around the dry heaves now, clutching the sink so tightly he's sure he's cracking the construction, ripping it out of the floor.  John just can't get over the fact that women do this more than once if they know the consequences. 

Babies had better be totally fucking awesome, John thinks dismally, because not even sex is worth this shit.

"Okay, that's it!" Rodney says, his voice tinny and hollow over John's death throes.  "I'm getting Carson.  Stay there and--don't--die."  There's a rushed footfall and then suddenly silence, into which John moans:

"I motherfucking hate this galaxy."

 ****

 *****

 

By the time Carson gets there John has made himself comfortable on the bathroom floor again, arms folded over the toilet seat and cheek resting on one arm, staring intently at the bathroom tile.  If he focuses on breathing in and out enough, he can almost trick himself into believing that he no longer has any organs to vomit.  The room is just blue and chilly enough for it to almost work.

"Oh, dear," Carson says, and gets down on the floor with John.  "You poor thing.  Do you--are you done throwing up there?"

John moans.

"We'll pretend that's a yes," Carson says, and helps John up.  John rinses out his mouth again and lets Carson help him into Rodney's bed, with smells like sex which smells like more puking, though his stomach only gives one furious lurch before it subsides, and the trashcan Carson is holding like a shield is ultimately useless.

Carson takes his blood pressure and gets a blood sample and takes John's temperature.  He clucks a lot and says things in Scottish slang and pats John's shoulder in a thoroughly mothering way that John really appreciates.  He understands why girls really want their moms for things like this.

"No, seriously," John says pitifully.  "I'm so over this.  Fix it."

"Nine minutes of pleasure nine months of pain, Colonel."

John glares up at Carson so hard that Carson physically backs away.

"By which I mean, that horrible, horrible tractor beam," Beckett corrects.

"You're the worst doctor  _ever_ ," John hisses, and buries himself beneath the sheets.

About two hours later, Heighmeyer and Teyla show up.  Heighmeyer with saltines and soda and Teyla with Athosian tea, and John loves them both so much he wishes that Elizabeth would get over herself and embrace bigamy already.

"You guys are great," John says, squeezing between them on the couch in the lounge.

"Well," Teyla says, all smiles.  "Women have done this since the beginning of time."

"You're a very brave man, Colonel Sheppard," Heightmeyer says, and pats his knee.

John agrees with them, and they watch  _Top Gun_  and John figures their listening to him bitch endlessly about having Caldwell replace him ("Temporarily!" he points out--over and over again) as military head of Atlantis is fair payback.

About halfway through the movie, Rodney comes into the room and tosses around words like "harem" and "total slut!" and "oh--hey, that's…kind of hot, did you do that on Earth?" before he settles down on the floor in front of John's feet and watches Tom Cruise do his thing.  By the end of the movie, Rodney is leaning against John's knee and John is rubbing his head and Teyla and Heightmeyer are giving one another the patented That's So Cute look over John's head.

"Do you have a dress uniform?" Rodney demands later that night.

"I'm not hearing this," John warns.

"I'm just asking," Rodney says, feverishly interested.

John turns over.  "I'm going to sleep now."

"It's barely nine o'clock!" Rodney argues.

"I'm  _tired_ ," John says.  "Stop trying to get me to play into your military fetish."

Rodney glares and grabs his laptop, starts typing in bed.  "The magic is gone," he says.

 ****

 *****

 

Since he's grounded, John spends a lot of time going to the mainland to help the Athosians or exploring the city.  John's usually so busy gating off of Atlantis he doesn't remember half the awesome things about the city, so as soon as the morning sickness wears away by the middle of the second month, he starts pulling on a jacket over his sweatpants and going up to what he affectionately calls the lido deck to watch the sunrise.  The sun red and blooming over the endless ocean like a bursting heart and the sky turns pink and orange and golden with amazement and John squints into it, sitting cross-legged on the ground, a hand on his stomach, because there are the faint traces of two moons in the sky and Atlantis is the most amazing place John has never imagined.

After a few days Rodney starts joining him, groggy and hateful in his pajamas and BDU jacket, sweatpants cuffing over his boots, huddled in a close-eyed mass at John's side.

"You're sick," Rodney hisses.

"It's just amazing, Rodney," John says.  "All of it."

"It's  _the middle of the night_ ," Rodney argues, and buries his face in John's neck.  "Oh, God," Rodney moans.  "You smell so good.  How do you smell so good?"

"It's the Aqua Velva," John says snidely, but he laces his and Rodney's hands together.

"You're so lucky Caldwell's too busy having an inappropriate crush on Elizabeth to notice your little queeny habits," Rodney accuses, but manages to force his eyes open just enough to hiss in pain at the blinding light from the sunrise.  "Oh God, my corneas."

John laughs, and nudges Rodney a little.  "You could go back to bed, you know."

There's a brief, sullen silence before Rodney admits, "Carson says you shouldn't catch cold in your--in your not-condition."

"Aw, Rodney," John says, "I didn't know you cared."

"I don't!" Rodney snaps, and unfolds a blanket, covering both of them fussily.  "But you're still an integral part of this mission and Atlantis has a crush on you and I don't want to be on her bad side when I let you catch the flu on top of being an insanely persistent joker."

John nods drowsily and leans back against the exterior wall of the skyscraper, watches the sunrise blur out into pale whites and blues in the spherical sky from between the bars of the balcony.  That fatigue thing that Carson warned him about is totally true. 

He's privately grateful for the scaled-back duties. Though he makes a good show of fighting it, John's so dead on his feet by ten in the morning he always takes any periods of quiet in the middle of the day to sneak into his room to sleep, which is ultimately useless because he's out for the count again by seven in the evening and awake by five the next morning.  John feels weird and soft and a little bit detached--like he's ready to curl up like a cat and purr, drowsy in the sun.

John must fall asleep, because when he blinks back awake, Rodney's got one large palm on John's stomach, a warm, heavy spot on John's skin.

"I thought you said I was lying," John says, voice dry and scratchy from sleep.

"I'm just touching your fat," Rodney whispers back.

"I don't have any fat," John says in a low voice.

"Shut up and go back to sleep."

John says, "Okay," and he does.  When he next wakes up, the sun is high and shining in the perfect blue sky and his ass hurts, but Rodney is bitching loudly enough for both of them and pulling John to his feet and it is a beautiful day.

 ****

 *****

 

The second month passes mostly uneventfully, with John sleeping like a big, sloppy-haired cat--Rodney's very apt description--and giving up on convincing Rodney, because at some point it's going to be hard to deny the undeniable, so why waste the effort.  John becomes the unofficial adopted son of a decrepit Athosian woman who claims she remembers stories of other brave men who have borne the weight of women.  She cups his face and tells him he's a miracle and that the child is a miracle and hey, John realizes, that really helps alleviate the panic attacks when John wakes up covered in a cold sweat and suffering biological dissonance at three in the morning.

"It's just that men aren't supposed to have children," John says earnestly.

"Well, men don't usually carry the baby, no," Kate says soothingly.

John's eyes bulge.  " _Usually?_ "

"Well, seahorses--" she starts, and seeing the expression on John's face, holds up her hands in a peacekeeping gesture.  "Okay, fine.  Men don't carry the baby, no.  But that's what makes this so special, John.  For all we know, you may be the only man ever to really understand motherhood."

"I hate the word 'special,'" John says sullenly.  "In school it meant you were dumb or too smart, in the military it means you get the shit beaten out of you more regularly."

"Well, in this case, it means you get to be a part of something really amazing," Heightmeyer says soothingly.  She smiles at him and puts her hands on his, palming his wrist in a reassuring, kind way that kind women seem to have mastered--soft and so wonderfully gentle that John feels his shoulders go all loose.

"Amazingly freakish," John protests feebly.

She smiles at him though, that blinding, beautiful smile that comes before the lovely, robust laugh that Rodney is going to _kill_  him over one of these days, and squeezes his hand again, saying, "It'll be fine.  You've got an entire city rooting for you."

It's true, and John can't deny it, because Atlantis is populated with amazing people who have never failed to rise to the occasion, and they rise to the occasion for him.  Miko and Kusanagi continually produce revoltingly cute items for the baby, gender neutral but totally cool, like the gray onesie with the bat ears and the brown hat with monkey ears on the side.  Zelenka always gives John a big smile and asks how he's feeling and lets him play with the newest, coolest, safest thing in the lab.  Katie Brown brings him night-blossoming Atlantean flowers in heartbreaking purples and blues.  Elizabeth saves him Jell-O.  Ronon growls at anybody who isn't supportive, and they all give John at least a six meter berth, about which nobody is complaining.

"Okay," John says.

Heightmeyer smiles at him, pats his hand one more time, and says, "Good.  Now--go back to your room.  It's almost four AM."

Outside Heightmeyer's closed door, John bumps into Rodney, who looks at him skeptically for a moment, eyes roaming, before he says, "You weren't in bed."

"No," John agrees.

"So," Rodney says, irritable, "I thought I'd suss out the other woman."

"You really, really need to get over that," John says earnestly.

"I thought I'd just walk you home after your tryst," Rodney says, but his heart's not in it, and he starts down the hall, falling into step with John.

"Still not cheating on you," John says lightly, hitting the entry panel and stepping into his room, kicking off his shoes and pulling off his jacket.  "No clue why not at this point."

Rodney says, "Hey," feelingly, but then he gets into bed and John figures that's as close to a compromise as they're going to get anytime soon.

 ****

 *****

 

The third month, they find an Ancient outpost that refuses to light up or whirl or do anything for anybody except for Carson, who managed to make it blink unenthusiastically.  Then, Rodney translates some stuff that means Zero Point Module in Ancient and he shrieks and wails and begs and John gets sent through the event horizon, scared shitless and hiding it badly, because he remembers the crap Rodney was spewing back when Rodney  _believed_  John was pregnant.  John doesn't want to have a fetal arm sticking out of his face and he knows it's irrational and won't help but he tightens his vest around his waist extra-carefully and folds his elbows close, holding his P90 in front of his belly, the entire gateroom staring after him dolefully as he walks through the gate.

When he gets there, Lorne, Cadman, Ronon, and a few other members of what Rodney refers to as the most esteemed bastion of homophobia in the world gather around John like an iron wall, and John's so fucking proud of them for a second he's speechlessly grateful.  These are amazing men and women on Atlantis, and sometimes even he takes that for granted.  Not for the first time, he thinks that they will never stop making him feel lucky to have ever known them.

"Overprotective much, guys?" he says, trying to be light. 

Gate team two scoped out the planet and said it was basically clean, but John's feeling wary.  He tightens his elbows more and thinks that the sooner that they get the ZPMs the sooner he's back on Atlantis behind the shield--the sooner he can go to Carson and make sure nothing is wrong.  The sooner he can get another sonogram to add to his growing collection.  "What, are you and Carson just putting progressively larger and larger sports balls in front of the X-Ray?" Rodney demands when he sees them.

"Never can be too safe," Lorne says.

"We'd face a lynch mob back on Atlantis if you got so much as a scratch, sir," Cadman says, winking at him sweetly.

"Okay, good arguments," he says, and Ronon grunts in agreement.

Rodney is waiting at the outpost, so psyched that he's vibrating out of his skin.  He barely speaks three words to John, just points at things to touch and after a complicated and weirdly scary sequence of events during which Rodney makes John stick his  _whole hand_  into a really scary opening, something opens like a lotus and four ZPMs are stacked up inside.  If John thought Rodney was shrill when he was annoyed, he didn't know anything--but they're all kind of busy being overjoyed to care and of course, that's exactly when the Genii spies start shooting.

John's last cogent thought is, "No fucking way," before he curls in on himself, before he feels Ronon's heavy, crushing weight on his back and before his vision swims black and blurry and then there's nothing at all.

 ****

 *****

 

When John swims back to consciousness it's apparently the fourth month, and the steady, morbid singing of the heart-rate monitors--There're two, John thinks crazily, oh thank  _God_ , there're  _two_  because what if--and the washed out ceiling of the Atlantis infirmary.

He tries to look around and he realizes he's too weak to do much but blink three times, and before anybody even comes around to discover he's awake John's out again, feeling his body aching and heavy like a sinking ship in the white sheets.  He can feel exhaustion dragging him down again but John clings to waking because there's a second heart rate monitor and he memorizes the fast, frantic beat of it, burns it into his brain, and the thought of what it might be like if there was only one hurts so much John lets the black suck him down.

The next time he wakes up it's with Elizabeth passed out at his bedside.  He's well enough now to lift one hand and put it on hers.

When her eyes snap open, he says, "Is--is the--"

Elizabeth nods her head frantically, clutching John's hand.  "Everything's--you're fine.  The baby's  _fine,_ John," she promises, voice raspy.  "He's fine, John.  He's  _perfect_."

John thinks he's going to start crying again, so he pulls his hand away and puts it over his face, because he's having a son and he's never been so fucking terrified and grateful and sick and happy all at once--and he can't get over the fact that women have been doing this from the beginning of time.

"Okay," he says, and his voice cracks around the second syllable, and he can feel hot tracks rolling down the sides of his face, he can't help it.

"Oh my God, John," Elizabeth says, and she pulls his other hand to her cheek and holds it there.  "You scared us so badly."

"I scared myself," John says, and he sounds reedy, high-pitched, panicky.  He wants to see his kid right now, and he pulls his arm away from his face and glances around for Carson.  He says, "Where's Beckett?  I want--I want him to run tests.  I want another sonogram.  I want--"

"Okay," Elizabeth says, and she presses a kiss to the knot of his fist.  "Okay."

And then there's a flurry of activity where there is a lot of stealth employed to get Carson without notifying any other nonessential personnel, because John feels himself fraying at the edges and if he doesn't see his kid right the fuck now, he's going to lash out and kill something.  Carson takes his blood pressure and tells him to calm down and John hisses that he'll calm the fuck down when he knows his baby is okay.  Carson sighs and they do a sonogram and John can't look away.

It's still a blob but it's his blob and it's alive and John can hear its--"His," Carson says gently.  "It's a boy, Colonel."-- _his_ heartbeat over the monitors.

John stares for a long time, and he reaches out to touch the monitor, smooth his hands over the gray, filmy image before he swallows hard and says, "Okay."

Carson smiles and says, "Go back to sleep.  When you're more up to it, we'll do an amniocentesis and some other tests to further compromise your dignity."

"Okay," John says, and he's lightheaded and so tired and his whole body is trembling from adrenaline.  Elizabeth takes his hand again when Carson presses a few buttons and John's bed goes horizontal again, and John asks, "How's everybody else?"

Elizabeth leans over and kisses his forehead, and John thinks that women are the most amazing creatures in the whole universe.  She says, "They're fine.  We're fine."

"The--the guys who attacked us?" John asks.

"You should go back to sleep," Elizabeth chastises, and John feels the tidal pull of sleep.

"Just tell me Ronon killed the hell out of them," John says drowsily.

Elizabeth chuckles gently and smoothes his hair.  "Oh yeah," she says.

"Good, good," John says, and goes back to sleep.

 ****

 *****

 

The next time John wakes up, Rodney's there.  John squeezes Rodney's hand like he did with Elizabeth, but Rodney doesn't kiss his knuckles or tell him he's so glad John's awake.  Instead, Rodney stares like his whole world is falling down around him, and he's so careful when he holds John's hand it makes John's heart break.

"Hey," John says, raspy.

"So apparently you are pregnant," Rodney says, hollow.

"It's a boy," John says, groggy.  He rubs one hand over his face and feels the IV tug on his skin, hissing at the sting, and Rodney pulls his hand away, smoothing his large palm over John's forehead, brushing away mussed bangs and still staring, eyes huge and blue.

"I'll get some balloons," Rodney murmurs, and his thumb is rubbing an insistent circle into John's palm in a way that makes John feel a lot smaller and breakable than he really is.  "Blue ones."

"That's kind of sexist," John says quietly.

Rodney stares at where he's clutching John's hand and says, "Yeah."  There's another long silence before he says, "When we rolled you over on that planet and saw all the blood, I think everybody went a little crazy."  Rodney pauses.  "I went a little crazy.  I went crazy at everybody.  I went crazy at Carson and I went crazy at the nurses and I treated everybody like shit for a whole entire three weeks until Carson sedated me against my will and had a military escort keep me in my room until I had slept."

John smiles raggedly.  "You on anybody's hit list?  I mean, more than before?"

Rodney scowls.  "No."  Then, more quietly, he says, "No.  I think--they bent over backward for me.  There was a lot of screaming and hysterics and passing out at your bedside in a totally undignified way but nobody ever." 

Rodney stops himself and closes his eyes, and there are dark circles under them, like all the sleep Carson forced him to get didn't register at all.  And then he puts his head down on John's hand and says, "I'm not crying, okay?"

John feels Rodney's forehead hot against the back of his hand, and hot tears on his skin and he closes his eyes and clutches Rodney's fingers and says, "Okay."

"Please don't do that anymore," Rodney says about a million years later, and all John can do is run his fingers through Rodney's hair in what he hopes is a reassuring way, because he can't make promises like that, not in Atlantis.

"Okay," John lies.

"Nobody else likes me," Rodney says pitifully.  "I mean, nobody else would put up with me and put out for me.  So please don't do that anymore."

"That's so romantic," John comments.

"And you're having my baby and all," Rodney says, voice muffled into John's hand.

John's eyes go huge.  Then he jerks his hand out of Rodney's and says, "What?" very loudly.  The whole soft-focus-lens moment is destroyed and Rodney is left sputtering while John yells things like, "You did  _what_  while I was asleep?" and "You _sedated me_  so you could put a gigantic  _needle_  into my stomach?" and "Wait--seriously, it's  _Rodney's?_ " at Carson.

"Stop sounding so insulted!" Rodney snaps.

"I'm just saying!" John protests.  "Beam of light!  McKay DNA!  Does not compute!"

"Actually, I have a theory about that," Carson says brightly. "I hypothesize that the beam of light didn't actually impregnate you--just made you receptive…to…"

Carson trails off when he sees Rodney and John's simultaneous Glares of Death.

"I'll be over there," Carson says.

 ****

 *****

 

There's a lot of yelling and hand waving but it's not like John would rather the father of his child be a beam of freak alien light than Rodney, so in the end, it's just the two of them terrified and grateful and letting off a little steam.

A week after John wakes up, he's released on his own recognizance and that's when he learns the true meaning of hell.

If he thought Rodney was overprotective and clingy the  _first_  time, John just didn't know.

To be fair, it's not Rodney's fault that John gets wheeled back to his rooms.  That one can be collectively blamed on the entire medical team with a lot of loud agreement from McKay.  On the other hand, the fact that his  _entire room_  has been rearranged to make room for Rodney's crap, the metal cradle from Zelenka buried under acres of linens, complete with ruffles, and what looks like a good three years of jailtime-worthy amount of pilfered medical equipment.

"Don't you have better things to do?" John demands as Rodney is tucking him into bed.

"Oh, please.  We got two whole extra full ZPMs.  We're basically turning the city on and saying, 'Go, have fun--fix yourself' at this point," Rodney scoffs, even though John knows for damn sure that if John wasn't all shot and pregnant Rodney would probably be having one long, sustained orgasm over all the new Atlantis functions.

As if to verify Rodney's claim, the lights in John's room dim soothingly, with soft, ethereal music piping out of nowhere, temperature lowering slightly just the way John likes it.  The whole room seems to round out in welcome.

"Hey!" Rodney says.  "You didn't do that for me!"

The music bleats at Rodney rudely before flowing back into a soothing melody.

"Totally disgusting," Rodney mutters, and fluffs John's pillows and sits at the foot of the bed.  He looks at John sternly and says, "Now.  We have to make some rules?"

John blinks.  "Rules?" he asks.

 ****

 *****

 

Despite John's vehement disagreement, these are the rules:

(1) John is not allowed to put himself in dangerous situations; this includes being alone with Kavanagh and flying the jumper without a co-pilot.  Also, playing foozball with anybody from Botany.

(2) John is to stop having illicit affairs.

("Will you  _let that go?_ " John demanded.)

(3) Ronon is allowed to kill at his own discretion.

(4) Rodney is allowed to go to any lengths necessary--full stop.

(5) Any and all means will be utilized to keep John and the baby healthy.

"You're batshit insane!" John accuses, but Rodney is tugging a chair over to the side of the bed, clutching his laptop in his free hand, ignoring him completely.

"Now, now," Rodney says, "your blood pressure."

John sputters for a bit, but ultimately John decides he'll just count this in the "very creepy, but kind of sweet" column and goes to sleep.

When he swims to consciousness hours later, Rodney's asleep, head resting on his folded arms, leaning against the mattress, slumped over on the floor.  One of Rodney's hands is touching John's side very softly, and it must be love, John thinks, because for some reason, it makes up for all of Rodney's stupid rules.

 ****

 *****

 

John realizes that the main drawback of sleeping with the Chief Science Officer of Atlantis isn't so much the fights, the snoring, the unexpected pregnancies, but instead the way that when Rodney stalks, he does it with a terrifying comprehensiveness and flair.  Rodney has spies everywhere--and he's apt at any moment to buzz John on his radio and say something saccharine and annoying like, "Don't you  _dare_ , you total idiot!  That's half my genetic material you're lugging around and I can  _feel the voice of protest_."

"I'm just going to the jumper bay!" John lies.

"Don't even!" Rodney hisses, like he's tricked Atlantis into making him psychic.

But to be honest, John knows that it was a close call.

Carson says John was lucky--too lucky--that if the trajectory of the bullet had gone any more steeply then God only knows, but it was essentially a flesh wound.  John went through a few days of unmitigated hell when they were easing him off the painkillers, but Rodney kept fretting over him and John kept reminding himself he didn't want his kid to end up a stoner, so even that hadn't been unbearable.

What's getting to be unbearable though, is how Rodney managed to get a copy of  _What to Expect When You're Expecting_ and is  _ruining John's life_  with it.

On the last week of month five, John wakes up to see Rodney staring down at him intensely, and not five seconds go by before Rodney asks:

"Have you considered breast-feeding?"

Later, when he and Teyla are doing breathing exercises in the gym, she asks, "Do you plan on allowing Dr. McKay back into your room any time soon?"

John says, "I was thinking we need to explore our boundaries."

"I think that is a very good idea," Teyla says, smiling openly.

Even the whining over the room's intercom is bearable, because like Rodney says, Atlantis is on John's side and the door stubbornly refuses to open for Rodney all twenty-seven times he tries to get back into the room.

"This is just juvenile!" Rodney shouts, and more faintly: "Oh, oh--laugh it up, Zelenka!"

"I just need some space, Rodney," John yells back sarcastically. 

John's futzing with a panel near his bed when it produces a flat screen in the wall and soon he's so busy watching what appears to be a terrible, Ancient soap that Rodney's bitching just blends into the white noise.

"But Miyatha!" Themero argues, clutching his heart.  "I love you!  Your beauty--!"

Miyatha holds up one quelling hand, her robe draping gracefully.  "Themero--I know.  I just do not feel ready to have your _child,_ especially not so you can use it to power the city!"

John snorts and takes a bite of a powerbar, saying, "Preach it, sister."

 ****

 *****

 

Meanwhile, John's losing his girlish figure by degrees, stomach rounding out in a way he finds simultaneously amazing and totally scary.  Carson says that he's got one of those pregnancies that probably won't show much and Rodney scoffs and says that John's so damn skinny that the baby has nowhere to  _go_  but out--but the kid disagrees, apparently, and by the seventh month, John still looks pretty normal, though none of his pants fit right anymore.  Also, Rodney claims he's glowing, but John claims that if Rodney claims this in public anymore, John will beat the shit out of him, and Rodney knows enough about pregnancy hormones now to back off and let John do his thing.

One night, John wakes up needing to go pee  _again_ , and feels something weird. 

He looks down groggily to see Rodney holding a pair of padded headphones to John's stomach carefully, ear pressed to John's raised belly, and John can hear Rodney counting out the beats softly, pausing to say, "Allegro, you hear that?  That means faster--and oh, dolce, slow, and languorous."

Rodney's hair is sticking up in every direction, and the way he's curled over John must be excruciating for his back, but when he turns to press the other ear to John's stomach and their eyes catch, Rodney is flushed red with excitement, eyes bright in the dim light.

He says, "Hi.  I didn't mean to wake you."

John whispers, "What are you playing?"

"Chopin," Rodney whispers back, and his eyes drift closed.  "The book said--"

"I know," John interrupts him, and when Rodney opens his eyes again, John reaches down to smooth Rodney's hair tenderly.

"It's just that this is my favorite song," Rodney explains, leaning into John's touch.

John feels the music thrumming against his stomach and the baby moving around, feels Rodney's breathing, his chest rising and falling, feels his own heart beat in time to the two of them--and outside the ocean laps against the piers of Atlantis like a bass beat and John smiles and finally, finally gets the hugeness of this miracle of theirs.

 ****

 *****

 

The whole month leading up to the Cesarean, Cesarean, Totally A Cesarean day the baby kicks like being in utero is going rapidly out of style.  It puts John in a wickedly bitching mood and the marines seem more frightened by him than ever; John thinks there's something really sick about him finally putting the Nancy Air Force stereotype to rest by ripping all of his men new ones while almost nine months pregnant.  There're just so many things wrong with that sentence John refuses to think about it at length.

"Ow, ow, ow," John says, and glares down at his bump, which is actually showing discontent protrusions when the little bastard goes Tyson on John's internal organs.  "Cut it the fuck out!"

Rodney scowls from where he's on the floor, baby-proofing…something.  "We're going to have to get a cussing jar," he says, distracted.

John rolls his eyes, marks his page in  _War and Peace_  and swings his legs over the side of the bed, frowning down at Rodney.  "What are you  _doing?_ "

Rodney mumbles something around a screwdriver before he starts banging at the desk, and John figures he really doesn't want to know.

The big day is coming up and John has managed to convince the scientists not to rig up an enormous monitor to display a countdown, but he's not stupid enough not to believe that they haven't set it up on the network or something.

The question on everybody's mind--everybody except for Ronon, who had taken to cornering Rodney and demanding him to make sure that his child was born in wedlock or else Ronon would do it for him--is what John's naming the baby.  Rodney initially suggested things like Kepler, and Rodney, and Rodney Jr., so John used his, "I'm giving birth, shut up," veto to spare his child, and has come up with a short list that includes names like Noah and Michael.

"Oh, that's so Judeo-Christian," Rodney had accused.

John had grinned.  "I bet Ronon would let me name the baby whatever I want."

And then Rodney would make the most awesome furious noises ever.

All of Atlantis was hunkering down in preparation for the baby; it was a collective effort.  The scientists did their thing, checking the shields and streamlining power usage, creating new and better safety procedures.  The military contingent, with Caldwell's help, reorganized and made new shifts and were all around less cranky but still totally terrified of Sheppard, just the way it should be.  Elizabeth had long, closed-door meetings with Caldwell that Sheppard figured included the words "gay" and "pregnant" and "please, please don't ask" and Caldwell saying things like, "don't really care," and "your hair is really pretty" and "please, please don't tell me."

But more than anything, it was like the ZPMs were timed perfectly so that Atlantis could blossom--the whole city blinking awake by degrees, growing lush and welcoming and practically luxurious.  John was most pampered of all, like a beloved child, and Rodney had a working theory that when the kid came out, it would basically be the biggest brat since Rodney McKay let out his first shriek--John's words, not Rodney's--since not only did he have an entire  _crew_  of people bowing and scraping at his feet, the  _city itself_  was dying to play grandma.

"Are you baby-proofing the  _floor?_ " John asks, bewildered.

Rodney pulls the screwdriver out of his mouth.  "Sort of--look, this is all just temporary.  I'm commissioning a group to scout out new quarters tomorrow.  I was thinking a nice, two bedroom apartment.  Big windows, that sort of thing."

John says, "Rodney--you're  _baby-proofing the floor_."

Rodney glares at him and starts banging at stuff again.

That's when John feels a sharp, horrible pain in his belly and says, "Oh,  _fuck_."

 ****

 *****

 

It's a disaster through and through, between Rodney's incoherent shrieking and death threats and Lorne fainting on their doorstep and the way that Carson says, "I'm not exactly equipped with epidurals, son!  They gave me a crate of prophylactics for a reason!"--John is starting to think that his only option is to fly his ass to the fucking mainland and let the women there chant the baby out or something.

Eventually, anesthesia is administered while Rodney clutches his hand and then John goes under, thinking, I love the Cesarean, Cesarean, Totally A Cesarean plan.

When he comes out of it, Rodney hands him a  _baby_.  A real  _baby_.  It's red and kind of ugly and his face is scrunched up but he has matted, pale brown hair like Rodney's and John's chin and he's the most amazingly perfect thing John has ever seen in his whole entire life.  John stares at his face, at his forehead, counts ten fingers and counts ten toes, and then he does it all over again--four times, because he just can't get over this.

"He's," John starts to say, and all the words go away, get stuck in his throat.  John knows a lot of words for good, but "amazing" and "incredible" and "awesome" and "totally cool" aren't measuring up at the moment, but the way Rodney's hand feels on his neck is a perfect translation.

"Yeah," Rodney agrees.  "He's--yeah."

John grins up at Rodney.  "Let's call him Bob," he says.

Rodney scowls.  "That's not funny.  That's totally  _not funny_."

John grins, but goes back to staring at his son, because,  _wow_ , he has a son.

After a while, Rodney clears his throat and says, "Actually, I uh.  Was looking at the list you made--and I like David.  Let's call him David."

John looks up at Rodney before he looks down at the baby. He smiles, smoothing a finger over his son's messy hair and saying, "Beloved.  Yeah.  It's a good name."

 ****

 *****

 

The next several years are filled with John's pain medications wearing off and making Rodney's life a total, unspeakable hell, which he thinks is only fair, given the fact that as Rodney says, nobody else would put up with or put out for him.  John has a big scar on his stomach but he doesn't mind all that much, and he and Rodney stay up a lot trying to put David to bed and ultimately failing.  They get over the awe and amazement phase after about six months, at which point they start pawning David off to anybody willing to take him and then crawling back to their rooms for some desperately-needed sleep.

Eventually, they give up balancing off-world missions where John comes home injured and Rodney yells, or Rodney comes home with his blood pressure off the charts and submit to their leadership positions on Atlantis like good ranking military and Chief Science officers.  Rodney bitches about it a lot more than John does, since John's busy training new personnel and convincing David he doesn't want to say the word "shit!" in front of Rodney because it would get daddy in a lot of trouble.

John and Rodney still have moments of cold-sweat-inducing panic when they think about the Wraith and how dangerous what they are doing is, but it doesn't seem to last through the night--not when David runs through the city and all the walls light up for him, when music plays him to sleep, when Atlantis loves David the same way John and Rodney do.

"His hair is starting to look stupid," Rodney accuses one day over breakfast.

"Yeah, well, he made one of the Athosian children cry yesterday," John shoots back.

Rodney narrows his eyes.  "Ronon is still trying to get me to make you an honest woman."

"And I'm still considering his offer," John says tartly.

From the next room, there's a huge thud, and then a gurgle of water before David yells from behind his closed door, "It's okay!  Everything's fine!  Nothing to see here!"

Rodney and John stare at each other for a minute.

"Should we--?" Rodney says.

"Nah," John dismisses.

"Wow," Rodney comments. 

"I  _know_ ," John agrees.  "Guess the classical music didn't work."

Rodney rolls his eyes, and says over the rim of his coffee mug, "Can't fight genetics."

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: This is probably the first and only story that I can legitimately blame entirely on another person, since Madelyn started lobbying for real mpreg immediately after I wrote my first cracked out pregnancy tease in Smallville fandom and didn't let it go--ever. After He's Having Her Baby! was finished, she began her reign of terror again. It took the combination of exhaustion, weakness of will, bloodloss and painkillers from wisdom tooth surgery to knock this one out of me over the course of two nonconsecutive days--12 pages the first day, like, twenty the next.
> 
> rageprufrock: Anything you want to contribute to the author's notes of this fic?  
> svmadelyn: I merrily accept any and all blame you are inevitably laying at my feet with no shame?  
> svmadelyn: In summation: There is no shame.
> 
> Can I just say it's really weird to keep crossing lines I draw for myself? That's about it.
> 
> Much shame and many apologies, Pru. (10/4/2005)


End file.
